FIRE’s 2nd-annual high school Free Speech Forum, SCOTUS upholds TikTok ban, & more!

Bringing you latest free speech news (1/19/25)

Story of the week

• High schoolers: Become a voice for tomorrow, today! by Molly Nocheck

FIRE is hosting its second-annual week-long Free Speech Forum for rising 10th-12th graders. This summer, it will take place in Washington, DC on the American University campus (my alma mater). If you know any liberty-oriented or free speech-curious high school students, please urge them to apply before the March 30 deadline!

This week in FIRE’s blog

• FIRE statement on Supreme Court’s ruling in TikTok v. Garland

• West Virginia Executive Order on ‘DEI’ unconstitutionally limits university classroom discussions

• No speech for you: College fires professor for calling America ‘racist fascist country’ in email to students by Haley Gluhanich

• Cosmetologists can’t shoot a gun? FIRE ‘blasts’ tech college for punishing student over target practice video by

  Graham Piro

• China’s censorship goes global — from secret police stations to video games by

  Sarah McLaughlin

International free speech stories of the week

• Spain eyes repeal of blasphemy law amid debate over free expression (Reuters)

About a third of European countries still had blasphemy laws in 2019, according to the Pew Research Centre, and in recent decades the issue has transcended religion to become a part of identity politics, said David Nash, a history professor and blasphemy expert at the University of Oxford.

• Australia is the first nation to ban social media for under-16s (Global Voices) by Gayle Pescud

• Thai Man Serving Record Royal Insult Sentence Faces New Charges (Barron’s)

• UK student Salma al-Shehab expected to be released from Saudi prison 'within days' (Middle East Eye) by Dania Akkad

London Calling: Ronnie’s First Amendment Roundup

• TikTok, Inc. v. Garland

What else can I pick this week but the Supreme Court’s last-minute decision to uphold a federal law requiring TikTok's American operations to divest from Chinese ownership or have U.S. app stores and service providers stop supporting it so the platform must go dark here? The Court unanimously held that, despite targeting a specific social media platform, having content-based exceptions, and including solutions that erect a complete bar on U.S. use of the platform given TikTok’s refusal to divest, the law might not be subject to the First Amendment at all, but in any event, is content-neutral, must satisfy only intermediate scrutiny, and the compelled complete shutdown is sufficiently tailored as a prophylactic against China collecting sensitive data from U. S. TikTok users that the law survives constitutional review. This likely reflects, as Justice Gorsuch's concurring opinion notes, that the Court "had a fortnight to resolve, finally and on the merits, a major First Amendment dispute" with "[b]riefing finished on January 3, argument ... on January 10, and [] opinions [] on January 17, 2025." The result was a rushed, high-level per curiam opinion – that is, one attributed to the whole Court, not any individual Justice – silent on the government's other proffered justification for the ban, i.e., China's asserted potential to manipulate content to tilt what Americans hear on TikTok in the marketplace of ideas. And for what? So that the self-same bipartisan two presidents whose actions the Court cited as partial support for its decision can nonetheless potentially grant an eleventh-hour reprieve to allow a claimed national security threat to keep operating until an alternative to a shutdown manifests? To be sure, avoiding forced shuttering of a communications platform that 170 million Americans use is preferable, but at what cost to First Amendment doctrine and in likely manipulable Supreme Court precedent? At least the decision implicitly rejects the D.C. Circuit’s endorsement of an asserted government interest in preventing “covert manipulation of content” as a national-security justification for the law. And the Court made clear to underscore that its decision upholds the law only as-applied to TikTok and its users, as well as "the inherent narrowness" of the holding – points that will hopefully limit the decision to its specific facts and its potential for future mischief-making in later cases.

Film of the month

This year is the tenth anniversary of the premier of ‘Can We Take a Joke?’ The documentary featured interviews with Gilbert Gottfried, Penn Jillette, Lisa Lampanelli, and Adam Carolla among others. It’s often hailed as ahead of its time for shining a spotlight on the tension between comedy and political correctness. In fact, it was so ahead of its time that when it was released, the term “cancel culture” didn’t exist. The film instead refers to the phenomenon as “outrage culture.” Even ten years later, it’s still as timely and important as ever.